Roger cast him a wry grin. “Hate to rain on your parade, buddy, but Mancuso had already made that very same observation prior to our interview with this guy. Gotta admit, I was pretty pissed off at myself for letting it slip by, but what the fuck? It gave Mancuso another feather in his cap while helping to boost my ratings as Mister Small-Town Cop at the same time,” Roger added acidly. “At any rate, this witness’s account more or less corroborated both yours and Mancuso’s hunch that the murderer might have taken some pictures at the scene.”
Sam could tell that his friend was taking his own oversight a little too hard, so he chose not to gloat. “The important thing is that we’re finally starting to get somewhere with this thing. But why in the hell did this witness take so long to come forth? This information surely would have helped a lot more a month ago,” Sam said as he pulled into the K amp;L Restaurant parking lot.
“Apparently he didn’t want to get involved at first, but his conscience eventually got the best of him. So he finally called the police-anonymously, I might add-and Mancuso managed to talk him into coming into the station to talk about it. You know, it never ceases to amaze me how people never want to get involved in a criminal investigation. One of the tenants in Sara Hunt’s apartment building also came forward with some pertinent information just recently, as a matter of fact.”
Sam pulled into a parking space and turned off the engine.
“What do you mean? Another late witness?”
Roger nodded. “Better late than never, I reckon. Anyway, Sara Hunt apparently had a nasty habit of turning up her stereo really loud whenever she listened to music, according to this neighbor of hers. On the night she was murdered, it had been cranked up to the max, so this guy, some crotchety old-timer who lived on Sara’s floor, started beating on Sara’s door and threatened to go tell the super if she didn’t turn it down. Sara had had run-ins with him before over her music and it soon became obvious to this guy that she wasn’t going to comply since she never responded and the music kept on blasting. So, he finally informed her through her door that he was going to get the super.
“As it turns out though, the old geezer had just been bluffing. He returned to his apartment instead of blowing the whistle on Sara. A few minutes later, however, someone did finally turn down her stereo.”
“Someone?” Sam said.
“We think it was the murderer who turned it down.”
Sam stared intently at his friend. “What makes you think that?”
Roger opened the car door. “Let’s go in and order some grub, then I’ll tell you. I’m famished.”
Sam nodded. They went inside and chose a table near a window away from the small lunch crowd. After placing their orders, Roger resumed the conversation, keeping his voice low.
“We’ve come up with a theory of what might have happened the night that Sara was murdered,” he said as he lit up another cigarette. “When the neighbor came to Sara’s door complaining about the loud music, we think the murderer just so happened to be in the process of strangling her at that very moment. The music of course probably drowned out any sounds of a struggle. And because of the murderer’s preoccupation with Sara, he was unable to turn down the stereo and avoid a possible confrontation by the super if and when he arrived. Once he had strangled Sara to death, the murderer ran over to the stereo and turned it down, then made a quick exit through the window onto the fire escape; no doubt praying that the neighbor had only been bluffing about calling the super. Once he was fairly certain that the super wasn’t going to show up, he went back inside and wasted little time in taking a few quick shots of Sara’s body before splitting the scene. We’re fairly sure that he fled through Sara’s door, just as he had entered, because the first witness said that he had continued watching the fire escape for at least an hour or so and never saw him again. Gutsy son of a bitch, eh? You’d think her assailant would have tried to make it out by the fire escape instead of risking being seen by the tenants.”
Sam shook his head slowly. “No shit. This bastard is as lucky as he is gutsy. What about the lipstick mark? Do you suppose he was unable to finish his little message on Sara’s body because he started getting a little panicky?”
Roger nodded. “Yup, that’s my guess. Everything sort of all falls into place when you think about it. Up until the moment when the neighbor knocked on Sara’s door complaining about the music, this guy evidently had everything pretty much under control. But once that happened, it threw the murderer’s game plan off and forced him to hurry up the process.”
“So this guy isn’t quite as slick as he must think he is,” Sam declared.
“Not in Sara’s case, at any rate. But don’t forget Marsha Bradley. Not a single slip-up there… so far,” Roger reminded Sam.
“That’s true,” Sam agreed.
“But he sure is one scary son of a bitch. What keeps going through my mind is that he had to take pictures of Sara Hunt’s body-like he was going to do it no matter what the risk might be. Couldn’t let it slide…”
“I know what you’re saying,” Sam said. “You’d think he wouldn’t have bothered. Apparently, those pictures meant a lot to the sick bastard.”
The waitress came with their drinks. Roger took a gulp of his coffee and said, “The times all match up with our theory, by the way. The man across the alley spotted the murderer on the fire escape at approximately the same time Sara’s neighbor knocked on her door bitching about the music. That’s how we came up with the theory in the first place. But of course it is only a theory and we’re still no closer to catching the perp than we were before. All we really have is a vague description of the guy, and that’s pretty damn weak at best. I mean, how many tall white guys with long dark hair and a beard are there in this country, you reckon?”
Sam nodded as he sipped. “I see what you mean.”
“So all of this information is for the most part useless, unfortunately. So imagine how Lieutenant Mancuso is going to feel when he learns that Mister Small-Town Cop just may have a suspect in mind.”
Sam nearly choked on his coffee. “What?”
The detective grinned smugly. “That’s right, Bucko. Like I told you earlier, there’s a lot more happening here in tiny Smithtown than there is in The Big City.”
Roger Hagstrom certainly had a flair for the dramatic, Sam thought to himself. It was just like him to wait until the last possible moment to divulge the crux of a matter. “What in the hell are you talking about, Rog?”
His friend ceremoniously stubbed out his cigarette and said, “One of my men called me at my hotel room early this morning. It seems that our little Smithtown Class of ‘70 yearbook investigation has yielded a possible suspect after all.”
Sam mentally raced through the senior pictures in the yearbook, wondering who it would be. “Who, Roger?” he asked.
“You ain’t gonna believe it, I can tell you that,” his friend replied.
“Who is it, goddamn it!” Sam snapped impatiently.
Roger stared directly into his eyes. “Stanley Jenkins.”
Sam pictured the horn-rimmed bespectacled geek with the 4.0 average and laughed out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding! Stanley Jenkins?”
“That’s right, buddy. And please, hold off on your understandable skepticism until I’ve finished. Because even if Stanley ends up not being the man we’ve been looking for, I’m sure that you will at least be appreciably impressed with his rather interesting and colorful past since graduating Smithtown High.”
Just then, the waitress came with their food. Sam waited until she had served them then said, “Let’s hear it.”
Roger took a gargantuan bite of his hamburger and washed it down with coffee before speaking. “After graduation, Stanley Jenkins enrolled at a little college in Indiana called Fountainhead Institute of Technology. I’ve never heard of the place before, but apparently it’s somewhere near the Ohio border, not far from Dayton. Anyway, as you recall, Stanley was a bona fide egghead and this college has a rather impressive engineering department. So Stanley chose to go there, as engineering was his major.”